Blog Archives

Opportunities for freshly grown local produce to be served in schools were discussed when school district food service directors attended an informational forum in Pierre, South Dakota last week.  They participated with a panel made up of South Dakota food producers, USDA Rural Development, South Dakota State Department of Agriculture, Dakota Rural Action, the state Department of Health, Value Added Agriculture Development Center and South Dakota Buy Fresh-Buy Local representatives.

Farm to School is a program that connects schools (K-12) and local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing agriculture, health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting local and regional farmers.

Today, the Economic Research Service (ERS) posted a new and innovative interactive mapping tool that makes it easy to visualize and compare rural economic and social conditions among counties, states, and regions. By creating county-level maps of the United States,  users can see how socioeconomic conditions vary across the United States, or within a state.

USDA Rural Development State Director Tony Logan joined officials from the Ohio Department of Education, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and Green Energy Ohio (GEO), on Feb. 10, 2011, to co-host a Wind for Schools informational briefing at Rural Development’s state office in Columbus. The briefing’s primary goal was to increase statewide awareness of the educational benefits of small scale wind projects at Ohio’s K- 12 schools.

Briefing attendees included classroom educators, representatives from business, agriculture, power companies, green energy advocates and Senator Sherrod Brown’s office. Participants discussed the US Department of Energy’s (USDOE) pilot Wind for Schools program and reviewed opportunities for state, federal and school district collaboration to deploy similar wind projects in Ohio.

Now that time has started to heal the wounds of many Pittsburgh fans we thought it would be a good time to highlight some of the work we did around  Super Bowl XLV.  USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) staff got to participate in Fiesta de Salud (Celebration of Health) — a community fair sponsored by the League of United Latin American Citizen (LULAC) and the National Football League (NFL) in Dallas, Texas. Fiesta de Salud was one of many NFL events planned during the week leading up to Super Bowl XLV which helped promote the NFL’s anti-childhood obesity program “Play 60.”

“YES! YES! YES!”

Larry Bagby was giddy as he lifted his 69-year old frame into an exuberant leap and repeated those words. Those words, he explained, were his initial response a few years ago when asked if he would support a neighborhood effort to hook up to a real wastewater system.

As the Economic Research Service celebrates its 50^th Anniversary this year and looks back over the decades, the legacy of Senior Demographer Calvin Beale stands out due to the 55-plus-year length of his service at USDA and the impact of his work.

Chefs across the country are getting involved in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Chefs Move to Schools program. Culinary whizzes nationwide are working with teachers, parents and administrators to show students that nutrition is not only imperative for their development, but can be fun and exciting, too.

Like in many communities, tree care in Casper, Wyo. was largely reactive and just one of many duties performed by the Public Services Department staff. Year after year of seeing trees removed without a plan for replacement worried the city staff members who performed tree work. No one, however, had any basis for articulating an argument that Casper’s prized legacy—their tree canopy—was poised for imminent decline. The last large scale tree planting initiative in Casper was at the end of World War II and their urban forest, full of Siberian elms, was not aging gracefully. For a few staff members, finding a way to make a compelling argument to care for community trees that was cost effective, accessible and credible became their personal charge.

On February 8, I was excited to work at the World Ag Expo, billed as the largest agricultural trade show in the world. As a newcomer to such events, when I saw the huge line waiting to get through the main gates on opening day, the first thing that popped into my mind was the word “incredible.”

Exports will be the focus of two highly anticipated sessions on Thursday, Feb. 24 during this year’s Agricultural Outlook Forum in Arlington, Va. USDA’s latest quarterly export forecast will be released that same day and will surely serve as a springboard for a lively discussion on the benefits of exporting as well as the role of agriculture in President Obama’s National Export Initiative (NEI).